The Parable of “Sharing” (Optional)

“Sharing would be harder on a man” (Butler 324). It is factual information—dare I say it—that women clearly have higher thresholds for pain when it comes to life-shattering experiences. I could imagine that if the main character of this novel had been a man, a lot more people probably would have been dead, not to mention a suicide attempt by the protagonist because he can’t deal with “sharing” his feelings with everyone who actually feels emotion or pain. Butler writes the character of Lauren extremely well, but while thinking about the concept of “Hyperempathy” in this novel, it got me thinking. Pain, no matter what form, is found in every person, every child, and ever living creature on this earth.

We witness several different occasions in the novel where Lauren observes something catastrophic, while practicing her shot and having to kill that feral dog outside of the walls, or any of the incidences when we see Lauren experience great emotion, even anger.  From the world that Bulter portrays to the reader, it can obviously be assumed that the world is not a happy place. I don’t believe that in a time when indentured servitude is being enforced again, that society would be making a progressive step towards the right direction. Regardless, one can imagine that if you summed up all the pain and anguish in this novel, especially that experienced by Lauren and her alone, it would be obvious to see that if Lauren was so “hyeremptathetic” to the worlds actions around her, she would ultimately have gone insane and never been able to take her many roles in leadership. Think about it, viewing dead bodies lying all over the street, children cooking large appendages in order to survive. I believe that in any singular mind, the “delusions” or disease that Lauren suffers would literally drive someone to the point of insanity. All the pain you could possibly witness would tear you internally limb from limb.

I wonder why it is that Butler never thought of this, or possibly even chose to ignore this possibility. Maybe the dynamic character growth of Lauren was needed to emphasize the changes that each character was forced to endure throughout the turbulent plot of Parable of the Sower and make the connection of Earthseed all the more prominent. The question left is, why was Butler so unwilling to “share” to her readers the fullest extent of what hyperempathy could do to a person, even what it could do to a main protagonist in a future apocalyptic society?